EU-U.S. Integration: Unattractive Union

It is now clear that European nations were deceived into joining an economic union that became a political union, yet our leaders still seek a similar economic union with the EU.

The New American has devoted extensive coverage to the risks of what critics have dubbed a North American Union (NAU), in reference to the incremental integration of the United States with Mexico and Canada. The foundation for such a union was initiated with the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, which went into effect on January 1, 1994. Like the older European Common Market that eventually morphed into the EU, NAFTA, a supposed “free trade” arrangement, provided the supranational architecture for future integration.

This process of North American integration was later advanced through the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” (SPP) that President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin launched at their Waco, Texas, meeting on March 23, 2005. (For background, see our special October 15, 2007 “Merger in the Making” issue; click here for the PDF.)

Few Americans are aware of the SPP arrangement because the major media ignored it — except for CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who said of the Waco meeting: “President Bush signed a formal agreement that will end the United States as we know it, and he took the step without approval from either the U.S. Congress or the people of the United States.”

It soon became apparent that the plan would lead to eventual political consolidation of the countries, modeled on the European Union. It would destroy U.S. sovereignty, nullify the Constitution, flood our nation with cheap, job-destroying imports via a NAFTA “Super Highway,” and allow uncontrolled immigration by erasing our border with Mexico.

Thanks to the vigilance of concerned activists, the alarm bells reached the halls of Congress, and in 2007 Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) introduced House Concurrent Resolution 40, which resolved that

(1) the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway System; [and]

(2) the United States should not allow the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) to implement further regulations that would create a North American Union with Mexico and Canada.

Robert Pastor of the ultra-establishment Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is considered by many to have fathered the concepts that resulted in the SPP. But writing in the July/August 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs (the CFR’s journal), Pastor registered disappointment with its progress. Though continuing to advocate continental unification, he lamented that “North America’s experiment in integration has stalled.... The April summit meeting [between U.S., Mexican, and Canadian heads of state] was probably the last hurrah for the SPP. The strategy of acting on technical issues in an incremental, bureaucratic way, and of keeping the issues away from public view, has generated more suspicion than accomplishments. The new president will probably discard the SPP.”

But like a running back who, about to be tackled, laterals the football to a teammate, the establishment has at least for the time being shifted to another scheme: cementing the United States to the European Union in what is called the “Transatlantic Partnership.”

Early rumblings of this partnership came in 2003 when the U.S. Department of Commerce stated in a press release: “Commerce Secretary Don Evans and his European Union counterpart, Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, reaffirmed the importance of the transatlantic economic and commercial partnership at a meeting last night in Washington, D.C.”

These sentiments were quietly certified in November of that year when the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 390, introduced by Nebraska Republican Doug Bereuter. The resolution declared that the “United States and the European community are aware of their shared responsibility, not only to further transatlantic security, but to address other common interests such as environmental protection, poverty reduction, combating international crime and promoting human rights, and to work together to meet those transnational challenges which affect the well-being of all.” It further stated that “the partnership should be expanded progressively from a transatlantic community of values to an effective transatlantic community of action.”

On the other side of the ocean, the European Parliament passed resolutions in May 2004 and January 2005 advocating the establishment of a “transatlantic market.”

These intentions became actuated at a White House summit on April 30, 2007. Standing beside Angela Merkel, president of the European Council, and José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, President Bush announced the signing of a new agreement whose expressed purpose is to “strengthen transatlantic economic integration.” Specifically, the pact called for “joint work in the areas of regulatory cooperation, financial markets, trade and transport security, innovation and technological development, intellectual property rights, energy, investment, competition, services, and government procurement,” as well as the “interoperability of electronic health record systems,” “customs cooperation,” and other steps toward economic integration.

The Pattern

Some may ask: “What is wrong with economic integration? What’s the big deal about cooperation? Isn’t it xenophobic paranoia to oppose it?”

Entirely aside from the fact that President Bush’s committing the United States to this arrangement with the EU, without the consent of Congress or a mandate from the American people, was an unconstitutional act, one must understand the background that has led to this development, which is only the latest in a series of events.

The governments of Europe and the United States are dominated by an “establishment” that intertwines multinational corporations, think tanks, central banks, powerful foundations, and the major mass media. In the United States, the Council on Foreign Relations is the establishment’s chief bridge of influence to the federal government, having dominated the cabinets of every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. The CFR has counterpart organizations in countries throughout the world. Coordination of policy between establishment figures from different countries has taken place through such venues as the annual Bildergberger conferences, begun in 1954, and the meetings of the Trilateral Commission, founded in 1973 by Zbigniew Brzezinski and CFR Chairman David Rockefeller. The goal of the CFR and its sister organizations is world government; in fact, the CFR was founded for that express purpose in 1921 after the U.S. Senate failed to ratify the Versailles Treaty, which would have committed us to joining a rudimentary world government in the form of the now-defunct League of Nations.

World government is the pathway to tyranny because, by eliminating the sovereignty of nations, it would concentrate all of the world’s political power in a single regime — a frightening concept to contemplate.

Because nation-states have traditionally, and rightfully, been suspicious of ceding themselves to a world government, the establishment has adopted the tactic of grouping countries under regional governments as a steppingstone to global dominion. A Frenchman or German, in other words, might feel more comfortable merged in a European federation than one that included Asia or Africa.

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin understood this strategy well. He said: “Populations will more readily abandon their national loyalties to a vague regional loyalty than they will for a world authority. Later, the regionals can be brought all the way into a single world dictatorship.”

In a modern context, Zbigniew Brzezinski said: “We cannot leap into world government in one quick step. The precondition for genuine globalization is progressive regionalization.” Both the European Union and the incipient North American Union are, of course, regional bodies.

However, many nations have been reluctant even to join regional organizations. The bait used to lure them in has been the alleged prosperity of trade treaties. These, while initially disguised as economic arrangements, cast the die for inevitable political consolidation.

The European Union is a case in point. The EU actually started in 1950 as the six-nation European Coal and Steel Community. In 1957, this evolved into the Common Market, which was sold to Europeans as a purely economic structure that would enhance prosperity; its official name was the European Economic Community.

The chief architect of the Common Market was the shadowy Jean Monnet, whom Time magazine called “the Father of Europe.” Monnet’s deceptive strategy was explained by British Conservative Adrian Hilton, who notes that Monnet believed

that Europe should become a federal superstate, into which all ancient nations would be fused. ‘Fused’ is the word he used.... For this to be achieved without the peoples of Europe realising what was happening, the plan was to be accomplished in successive steps. Each was to be disguised as having an economic purpose, but all, taken together, would inevitably and irreversibly lead to federation.

Once nations agree to complex trade agreements, conflicts naturally arise over issues such as prices, tariffs, taxation, product safety, union relations, etc. Resolution of these conflicts requires coordinated changes in laws. In Europe, laws are usually made by parliaments; thus the Common Market led to the formation of the European Parliament in 1979, and the European Economic Community simply dropped the word “Economic” — which had only been a pretense — from its name. Then came the European Union, in which sovereignties have been drowned: national parliaments find themselves increasingly subservient to the dictates of the EU, as they see their laws, currencies, court systems, militaries, etc., gradually consolidated.

The plans for a North American Union likewise got their start with an economic arrangement: NAFTA. Although hyped as a path to “prosperity,” Americans lost millions of jobs as cheap imports flooded the country. And our trade deficit soared: in 1994 (the year we joined NAFTA) it was $75 billion; in 2008 $673 billion. Our trade deficit with Canada and Mexico went from $9 billion in 1993 to $98 billion by 2003.

But adding constitutional insult to this injury, NAFTA’s foremost purpose was to lay the groundwork for consolidation. Andrew Reding of the World Policy Institute wrote: “NAFTA will signal the formation, however tentatively, of a new political unit — North America. With economic integration will come political integration. By whatever name, this is an incipient form of international government. Following the lead of the Europeans, North Americans should begin considering formation of a continental parliament.” (Emphasis added.)

This view was echoed by University of Nevada economics professor Glen Atkinson in his paper “Regional Integration in the Emerging Global Economy: The Case of NAFTA,” published in the Social Science Journal. He wrote, “The stage of economic union requires a high degree of coordination or even unification of policies. This sets the foundation for political union.” (Emphasis added.)

Bridging the Ocean

Thus no one should be surprised that the latest thrust toward world government — the Transatlantic Partnership — is initially being foisted on us as an “economic arrangement” (coupled, as was the Security and Prosperity Partnership, with assurances that consolidation will also provide protection against terrorism).

As we have noted, President Bush’s signed agreement with the EU’s leaders pledged “transatlantic economic integration.” It established a permanent Transatlantic Economic Council. And most of the agreement’s provisions — concerning trade, investment, energy, etc. — are economic in nature.

Based upon the pattern set by the European Union and the SPP, however, it is quite logical to conclude that this economic consolidation is only a prelude to intended merger with the EU.

Just 12 days before President Bush signed the agreement, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivered a speech at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. Ironically, as he stood only 12 miles from where the first shots of the American Revolution were fired, the Briton invoked this quote from John F. Kennedy: “Today, Americans must learn to think intercontinentally.” Continuing, he gushed that “a global society demands new global agreements and strengthened global institutions to protect and safeguard essential global resources.” Phyllis Schlafly counted the word “global” 69 times in Brown’s speech. Clearly, he was softening the American public for President Bush’s transatlantic agreement.

Indeed, the push for the Transatlantic Partnership is a well-coordinated one. At the hub of this movement is a powerful but largely unpublicized institution called the Transatlantic Policy Network (TPN), headquartered in Washington and Brussels.

In February 2007, just two months before the U.S.-EU Summit, TPN published its white paper Completing the Transatlantic Market, which declared: “It is time for a complementary, top down approach to transatlantic cooperation through a joint commitment by the European Union and the United States to a roadmap for achieving a Transatlantic Market by 2015.”

As Dennis Behreandt insightfully noted in the May 12, 2008 issue of The New American:

The emphasis placed on “top down” is not insignificant. As typically used by NGOs, that terminology usually implies that executive-level leaders will impose their desires on the citizens of a nation, not the other way around as envisioned, for instance, by America’s Founders.

Indeed, TPN’s website (www.tpnonline.org) lists as its business members a host of multinational corporations, such as AIG, Citigroup, Time Warner, IBM, Merck, GE, and Coca-Cola. Peter Sutherland, the EU honorary president of TPN, is chairman of both Goldman Sachs International and the British Petroleum Company, as well as former director of the sovereignty-sapping World Trade Organization.

Among the “Cooperating Institutions” listed by TPN are what we might call a round-up of “the usual suspects” who advocate world government over national sovereignty, such as: the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR); RIIA (the CFR’s British counterpart); the German Council on Foreign Relations; the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); the Atlantic Council; the Aspen Institute; the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The CFR’s role in advocating regional alliances and world government is well known to many readers of The New American. It is interesting to note the statements being made by others listed among the “Cooperating Institutions” that demonstrate they are moving lock step with TPN.

For example, CSIS, which counts among its members such CFR heavyweights as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Felix Rohatyn, Harold Brown, and Brent Scowcroft, released a report in 2007 called “Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World:Renewing Transatlantic Partnership.” It said that “our long-term vision is for a zone of common security and collective action from Finland to Alaska.”

In 2009, in its journal Internationale Politik, the German Council on Foreign Relations published an article by Paul Hockenos entitled “Rethinking US-Europe Relations.” It declared: “It must be a partnership of equals across the Atlantic and this will require real compromises from the United States as well as the Europeans.”

In 2007, the U.S.-based Atlantic Council issued a 35-page report entitled Transatlantic Leadership for a New Global Economy, which advocated a “barrier-free ‘Enhanced Transatlantic Market.’” Among its many specific recommendations: “The United States and the EU should launch a new, jointly funded effort to develop future energy technologies that will both improve efficiency and reduce global warming, as part of the development of a new, post-Kyoto international consensus.” It calls for transformation of the International Energy Agency (IEA) into “the primary institution for global energy governance,” and a merger of the World Bank with the IMF. In short, it wants broad consolidation of power.

The Atlantic Council is an old hand at the transatlantic game. Officially founded in 1961, it grew largely out of the older Atlantic Union Committee, whose members envisioned a U.S.-Europe merger which they dubbed “Atlantica.” In the 1960s, the council’s lobbying resulted in resolutions being brought before Congress that would have laid the groundwork for this merger. The resolutions were consistently rejected by Congress, but with the further withering of national sovereignty, the council appears ready to renew its merger crusade.

Events Propel the Union Forward

Neither the advent of Barack Obama nor the current financial debacle will slow the Transatlantic Partnership, but can be expected to accelerate it. During his presidential campaign, Obama named globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski as one of his top foreign policy advisers, calling him “somebody I have learned an immense amount from.”

Following the elections, Nicolas Sarkozy, president of both France and the European Council, said that “the European Union sees in this election the promise of a reinforced transatlantic partnership.”

In the Spring 2009 issue of Internationale Politik, the German Council on Foreign Relations published an article called “A New Transatlantic Partnership” that actually complained of “the bruises that the transatlantic partnership suffered during the Bush years” and opined that “if Europeans could have voted in the 2008 US presidential election, they would have voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.”

Indeed, in April of this year — just a little more than two months after his inauguration — Obama traveled to Europe for a series of summit meetings with EU leaders. Canada is now joining the Transatlantic Partnership. Canada’s daily Financial Post reported on March 5, 2009:

Canada and the European Union have agreed to begin free trade negotiations.... After months of “scoping exercises,” the two parties have come to an agreement on the areas they would like to negotiate, including trade in goods, services and investment, and have now adjourned to prepare their proposals to take to the negotiating table.... “At long last, Canada is poised to realize the immense potential of a closer transatlantic relationship,” said Thomas d’Aquino, president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

The financial meltdown is being used as a stick to force us eat the “carrot” of the Transatlantic Partnership. The Brussels Forum — yet another internationalist tentacle of the transatlantic network — recently declared: “Since the beginning of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, the world economy has deteriorated at an alarming rate.... The U.S. and European governments must reassess the role of the transatlantic partnership in the global economy and re-ignite it as the catalyst of global economic recovery.”

In the United States, Henry Kissinger has long epitomized the foreign policy establishment. He once told Hamilton Fish Armstrong, editor of the CFR journal Foreign Affairs, “You invented me,” and before serving as Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State, he acted as chief foreign policy adviser to Nelson Rockefeller, whom he called “the single most influential person in my life.”

Still a dominant voice in foreign policy, Kissinger published an article in the January 12, 2009 issue of the International Herald Tribune entitled “The Chance for a New World Order.” He stated:

As the new U.S. administration prepares to take office amid grave financial and international crises, it may seem counterintuitive to argue that the very unsettled nature of the international system generates a unique opportunity for creative diplomacy....

Even the most affluent countries will confront shrinking resources. Each will have to redefine its national priorities. An international order will emerge if a system of compatible priorities comes into being....

The alternative to a new international order is chaos.

The coordinated voices of many global elites, speaking through mass media organs owned by the international establishment, give the public an illusion that there is a logical consensus for world government, with the Transatlantic Partnership as its newest cornerstone.

However, like NAFTA and the European Union itself, there has never been any mandate from the people of the nations for these globalist arrangements.

Experience has proven that if America moves ahead with the Transatlantic Partnership, the economic alliance will be converted incrementally into a political merger. The once-powerful nations of Europe are progressively finding themselves reduced to the status of mere provinces of the European Union. Should America unite with the EU, we can expect to follow suit, find our Constitution scrapped for international regulation, and ourselves — after over 200 years of the blessings of independence — little more than a colony of Europe.

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